DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter, J.K. does, and she has every right to do whatever she thinks is best for Harry Potter. I just love writing. So sue me. Wait, seriously… don't.
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"Stop!"
From her position on the floor of Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom, Hermione looked up at the sound of a very familiar voice. She couldn't believe it when she saw the owner standing a few feet from her. Before she could find her voice to speak, she looked at Ron, who was also staring with wide eyes.
"What…?" Hermione finally spoke, her throat working convulsively to keep her emotions intact.
"Don't take that potion." The protest came with much force that took her completely by surprise.
"How did you…?" she asked, unable to finish another sentence. Her senses were dazed from having the shock of seeing such a startle and her mind was reeling from curiosity as to what could have brought this situation upon her.
After a long, unbearable silence, Harry spoke. "Ron told me."
"He did?" Hermione's confused look shifted from him to Ron. "What else did he tell you?" She asked, keeping her eyes on her red-haired friend whose color had suddenly gone pale.
"Everything."
It took only a few seconds for her to understand and for her expression to change from confusion to accusation. "All I asked of you was a simple favor, Ron. You didn't approve of anything I wanted to do, but you gave me your promise not to tell Harry. I know you didn't want to, but I thought, as a friend, you would at least honor the promise you gave me. But I was wrong. You just couldn't keep this from him. You just had to tell him and hurt me more." Hermione spat, fury written all over her face.
Ron could only look at her helplessly before seeking help from his other best friend whose appearance had also taken him completely by shock. Hermione had been just about to drink the potion when they heard the door slamming open and Harry emerging on that side after a few seconds.
For whatever reasons, that he didn't know.
"He didn't betray you, Hermione. I made him tell me." Harry said, taking a tentative step forward as she stood up, the potion in the cup on the floor, long forgotten.
"When?"
"Last night." Harry confessed. Looking down, he shoved his hands in his robe pockets before bringing himself to gaze straight into her eyes. "When we got back from the lake."
"The lake?" Hermione repeated. She closed her eyes in anguish, before opening them and then turning back to Ron. "So, everything you told me this morning, was a lie? Who saved me, Harry's robes! His being in the Girls' Dormitory! How could you do this to me, Ron!"
"Hermione, I didn't ask him to save you. He did that all by himself just as he did when you fell this afternoon." He spoke calmly, splaying his hands in front of her in defeat. "I didn't ask him to carry you in your room. He insisted on doing that. I volunteered, Hermione. I said I would do it because I knew you would react this way if I let him. But he wanted to Hermione. God knows he would have cursed me if I didn't. I only had to see his face to know he was serious."
"And what you told him? About…about…did he cast the Imperius Curse on you so he can order you to tell him everything you know? Did he make you drink Veritaserum?" Hermione accused. She sneered when Ron looked away in guilt. "Ha! You told him out of you own free will. You couldn't keep your mouth shut because you thought it would be better for me. But what good did it do? Nothing! You just added to my humiliation. And for that, thank you."
"Something good came out of it, Hermione." Harry said quietly from behind her.
She turned to him now, embarrassed, gaze heated, body trembling. "And what would that be?" She asked in a sarcastic voice with an exaggerated smile plastered on her face.
"I realized…" He stopped, couldn't find it in himself to say something so vulnerable in front of Ron. Her eyes narrowed at this and so he continued. "With what he said last night, I realized something I should have years ago."
She crossed her arms, unwilling to be swayed by his words that she, being the smart girl she was, expected to hear next.
"I realized…" He stalled again.
Impatient and unwilling to listen to anymore of his babbles, she straightened out her robes in a formal manner. "I don't have time for this, Harry." Realizing what she just said, she remembered the potion which she should have taken minutes earlier. Hermione cursed mentally as she admitted to herself that her efforts had been for nothing. She then decided to keep what little pride she had left and made a move to walk past him, when he grabbed her arm to prevent her escape. "Please, just let me go in peace."
"I love you."
For a moment, she looked surprised, his words seeping into her veins slowly. She had been about to smile at him for the joy she suddenly felt at his revelation when she realized what he must have meant. Recognition, pity and remorse flashed in her eyes. "As you probably know by now, I am in love with you and have been far too long. But now, I don't think I have it in me to continue. I loved you too much, that's why. It seemed to me before that caring you would give me the strength I need to face whatever pain you would cause. But it never occurred to me that I would grow tired of fighting for you, now that I'm sure you would never do the same for me." Hermione said with a bitter chuckle, her lame attempt in making the situation light tearing her inside.
"It's just, `loving' someone like you is too much. It's as if whatever I do wouldn't be good enough. Sometimes, even being who I am does not seem all right. And that hurts me so much more than the thought that you just love me as your friend."
Harry's face relaxed as he felt relief pour into him. "But I don't love you like that, Hermione." He said as he gently tipped her chin up so he could see her face. What he saw there made his stomach lurch and his heart beat so much faster. He looked steadily into her eyes. "I am…completely…insanely …in love with you."
This proclamation caused Hermione to gasp in surprise and Ron to stand up.
"You are?" Both of them said at the same time.
"Yes." His solemn reply earned him a look of pure joy in Hermione's eyes and a loud `whoop' from Ron.
Ron had been grinning before he suddenly remembered. "What about Cho?"
"Just broke up with her." Harry simply said, not taking his gaze away from Hermione, his eyes smiling into hers.
"You did?" Ron asked unbelievably. Then he grabbed Harry's shoulders, turning him away from her. "That has got to be the smartest thing you've done all year!" He said laughing, giving him a brotherly hug. After playfully rumpling the boy's already messed up hair, Ron turned to face Hermione, who for some reason had gone rigid. "Isn't that great, Hermione?"
She remained silent. Her head low, her shoulders slumped. Harry tentatively stepped towards her and touched her stiff form. She stunned him when she shoved his hands away.
"Is this your idea of a joke?" She asked coldly when he regained his balance.
It was Harry's turn to straighten and look stiff. "What are you talking about?"
"Am I some kind of a charity case to you?"
"What are you talking about, Hermione?" He asked again, trying to make her face him.
"Damn you!" She pounded her fists on his chest.
"Stop it!" Harry tried to restrain her, but for someone so small and fragile, she was strong; strong enough to continue her mad fit, but also strong enough to finally hold back what she felt.
"No!" She pushed him out of the way. "I'm not going to become your rebound!"
"Rebound?" He repeated numbly. "What gave you that idea? You're not a rebound!"
"Really!" She scoffed. "Don't treat me like I'm stupid. You're not in love with me. You just don't trust yourself to be alone without me, your friend, your thinker."
"That's not true!" He protested, his eyes blazing with fiery anger. "You know I'm better than that!"
"That's where you're wrong." She said. "I don't know you at all."
"Don't say that, Hermione." Ron interrupted. "Harry meant everything he said."
"And you." She turned to face him with wrath unseen before. "You side with him because you're just like him. I shouldn't have relied on you for anything. You told him things I trusted you to keep and you betrayed me. You've meddled into my life more than enough and you don't have the right to tell me what to do."
It was Ron's turn to look murderous, her accusations getting into his nerves more than anything. "I didn't meddle, Hermione. You dragged me into your problem. I didn't ask you to do what you've done here today. I tried to warn you about the risks you're going to take, but you were too stubborn to listen. You think just because you're the smartest witch in our year that gives you the right to do all that you want. Well, guess what? You don't have that right. For a smart girl, you could also be the stupidest."
With that, he grabbed his things and went out of Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
For a moment, Hermione was too shocked to move. Ron's outburst shook her senses, but she couldn't find in herself to retaliate. She was surprised, not because he was wrong, but more to the point, he was right.
She had been excessively selfish by blaming things on him and not taking into consideration that he tried to help her despite being against her plan. She was hardheaded and she had no right to place all those accusations on him. She wanted to go after him and say sorry, but all that came out of her was a sob as tears began to flow down her cheeks.
Her damnable honor was in the way. And no matter how much sense it would make to just forgive him and turn into him for comfort, Hermione felt as if her wounded pride could no more take another beating by taking back the things she just said. If she did, she would make herself look even more pitiful.
Instead, she chose to place her fury on the person who had been the cause of its birth.
"Laugh all you want, Harry. But I'm not going to be your rebound. So you can just take back your words and tell them to someone else who'll actually believe you."
"Why can't you believe I'm in love with you?"
"It's a little too hard to believe when you're telling me this right after you broke up with Cho. And when did you realize that you were `in love' with me anyway?" Hermione asked, sarcastically emphasizing the two words.
Harry paused for a moment, looking perplexed. Then he took a deep breath…"Just this afternoon…" He said softly, as if seeing where she's headed with what she had asked and realizing that she had a point. But unwilling to give her the satisfaction of winning instantly, he tried to abstain his guilt by pointing out his feelings of late. "But I've been having mixed thoughts about it since we got into that fight the night we returned from Hogsmeade. And I didn't even know then that you felt that way about me. Doesn't that count for this feeling being real, Hermione?"
"It made you think, Harry, but would it have made you move? You only told me how you felt because you know I feel that way about you. Had Ron not tell you what he did, would you have actually confessed this to me now?"
"Yes."
"Do I see hesitation there in your eyes, Harry?" She asked. "I may have been blinded by my feelings for you to see how hopeless I had been, but I don't need to see anything to know that you're having second thoughts about me. I can actually feel your regret."
"If regret is what you can feel in me now, then that is because I've done something I do regret. And that is, telling you this at the wrong time when I have had so many right chance before." He took a deep breath. "Hermione, please believe me. I do love you."
Harry couldn't believe that saying those three words could get any easier, but as he looked at Hermione's vulnerable expression, her gaze on his face, he knew that he will never get tired or ashamed of saying them, as long as they were meant for her.
But, even his earnest expression couldn't take away her suspicion. As he stared back at her, with that pale face, thin, disapproving lips, and misty brown eyes, he knew she had shut herself from him. She was no longer staring with an intense gaze. Her heated expression had suddenly vanished and for the first time in the years that he had known her, she had suddenly become no more than a friend to him than Draco Malfoy was. Her icy stare which was numbing his senses, became proof of that.
"Hermione…" Harry reached out for her, but even as his hands barely touched her skin, she flinched as if the mere contact would painful and deadly. What he didn't know was that it was exactly how she would feel; his skin on hers would be like knife slicing through her heart and slowly taking her life away. "Please…" He implored one more time.
"I've done all the understanding I could do." She said, sitting on heels to gather all her things. When she had her back turned away from him, she swiftly wiped the fresh tears strolling down her cheeks. These stupid tears had been blinding her, and if she had wiped them earlier, she would have seen the look of despair on Harry's face. But she was a mess. Her life was a mess. And that realization was what it took to make her decide she couldn't take any more cruelty. She stood up and walked past him, not caring if she collided with him as she did.
She opened the door. "Just stay away, Harry. Don't come near me again, or I swear to God, I'll forget we were ever friends."
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A couple of weeks had passed ever since that afternoon of painful accusations and realizations.
Somehow, the rift among the three people who had been deemed as inseparable had reached the knowledge of every existing creature at Hogwarts. And although people had been insensitive to understand that discussing the matter with the trio who were involved was unbearable, they soon began to accept that their personal business was theirs alone and that it should remain personal. So, they stopped badgering and asking. Instead, they supported each of them individually.
Harry and Ron still talked to each other. And though it may seem that two weeks was just a short time, this period had been long and excruciating for the two people who had never been used to being apart. Eventually, they did get together and even managed to laugh when they were in each other's company, forgetting what happened that made them end up in that situation.
The third person involved, however, was not in a hurry to forget things as easily. She was hurt terribly, her pride battered, her heart crushed. Some people even doubted that she'd be able to recover. No one could blame her for thinking the way she did. The timing had not been the most perfect. It could even have been the worst. To Harry and Ron, she wasn't being fair. But to others, who had watched her pitifully through her ordeal, they understood and they even sided with her, however unreasonable it may be.
Life had been perverse to her, and now, she was just giving it a dose of its own medicine.
Hermione had never been so free in her life and neither had she ever been so lonely. She was uncontrolled, free from worrying about people who had magnetism for trouble, yet never had she been more restless.
There were times she wanted to relent and make up so everything would be back to the way they were, but each time she came close to doing so, she would be reminded that there was no chance things were going to be just as where they left it off.
Words had been said, feelings poured, anger unleashed.
No….
She never dared to believe…to hope…things would be the same.
Because it was impossible…and also because most of it was her fault…
That was why; it made her even more persistent to continue what she had ultimately began. She couldn't face them now…not ever.
Today, as she gazed at the sea of faces before her, the microphone before her trembling lips (in honor of their valedictorian, Prof. Dumbledore insisted on doing that part of their graduation the way muggles do), there was a lump in her throat. From up there, she could see the smiles on everyone's faces. Their supportive look and their eyes full of pity moved her to two directions: the happy and the sad ones.
Happy because they liked her enough to understand, and sad because they felt that way with pity for her.
With a small smile, she began her speech…
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"Congratulations, dear!" Hermione's mother embraced her with so much emotion that Hermione actually wanted to cry and crumble in her arms. Mrs. Granger's daughter had just finished her studies and being the valedictorian was the cherry on top of her ice cream. She was so ecstatic over that accomplishment that she failed to see the look on Hermione's face. A look that when seen, any mother would grow weary with alarm.
But as neither of her parents knew what had taken place within the walls of her Alma Mater, neither also noticed anything different. If they saw the sad look in her eyes, they would have probably mistaken it as pain over her leaving school. And soon, they left her to say goodbye to her friends…
Her friends…who were her friends?
Surely not these people who kept sending a smile in her way and congratulating her every chance they get. They couldn't be her friends. They were too friendly, almost robotic. As if it was their duty to become that way towards her.
Why? Because she was alone? If that was the case then she didn't need them at all. She could make it on her own. Couldn't she?
"Hey."
Someone from behind her suddenly greeted, causing her to turn around swiftly. When she saw who it was, she froze, and for a moment, knew very little on what to do. She was left staring, scrutinizing…judging whether her heart could endure more suffering if she let him in her life again.
But as he sent a timid smile her way, she knew he wasn't like the others who did it out pity or out of duty; he was doing it because he was real. He was there and he wouldn't leave her alone despite her would-be protests.
Not a moment's hesitation passed by before she smiled back…
From a distance, she could hear people chatting lively, celebrating the end and the beginning of their life respectively in and out of Hogwarts. If she were they, she would have been doing the same thing, but she wasn't. She was different, and so was the person she was with right now.
They talked to catch up with what happened over the past two weeks. Things would have been painful, but they weren't. Acceptance and forgiveness had been a part of that talk and now that it was just about done and over with, nothing could have made her day even better…well, perhaps there was one more thing…but that was too great a dream to dream about…for now, this was perfect.
As they continued to enjoy each other's company, they both got caught up with the sunlight streaming in between the tall trees and beneath the one they were under, which reminded them that this place was one of those they would never forget. They used to think here, to plan, and to talk about somebody who had been the greatest part of her life.
And though as if in the twist of fate, her companion couldn't have picked a better time to ask. "Are you sure about this?"
Hermione looked up at his face, masked with freckles and topped with red tresses, blue eyes searching her own. She smiled, her white teeth shining, her eyes sparkling, not with delight, but with regret.
"Well…are you?" He asked again.
Very slowly, but firmly, she nodded.
In answer to her response, he stood up and offered her his hand. She looked at it, hesitating for a while, suddenly wanting to take back her impulsive decision. But as she caught a glimpse of everything around her, she realized that this place had been all about Harry…and no matter what she would do, he'd always be here. But where she was going, he must no longer occupy her thoughts. And if she were to live that way, she might as well forget the many things he made her feel.
Starting now…
Hermione reached up and took Ron's outstretched hand. He pulled her to her feet and didn't let go. Together, they sauntered towards the crowd of smiling faces, waiting for their return. Somehow, Hermione considered that in her entire life, she had probably met only a few whose grins made you really feel cared. Sadly, that few was about to become less.
Without looking back and with a resolute mind, Hermione walked away from the memories this place evoked…away from the life she once knew and cherished with her whole being…and into a new life she was about to begin…
…a life without Harry Potter.
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